a friend of mine who is a public school teacher wrote this on her fb tonight... This is why private school or homeschooling is looking so good! We have years to plan, but man seriously... she linked this article: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/07/_to_compete_states_must.html What are your thoughts?
Honestly? The idea of using little preschool children in a race to get funding makes me want to vomit. Little children shouldn't be pressured to test and match up with some random standard like a heard of cattle.
*sigh* My daughter went to an 'academic based' preschool. Not intentionally, mind you. And nothing strikes me as more ridiculous than some teacher telling me (in horror) that my 4yo can't match up her upper case and lower case letters and that she *gasp* still can't rhyme. To me, it's just one more ... lie about what the true problems with education are. They keep blaming parents. I'm not saying home environment doesn't affect kids because it DOES. HOWEVER- instead of fixing the educational disaster in our K-12 schools, they are extending the reach for younger children (to save them from broken homes... I can't help but think that's a factor here). Just sad, imho. And still not going to fix the current problems.
*sigh* I think its more the parents fault than the educaters. Moms and dads need to put their foot down. A friend of mine has a 4 yr old in a private preschool, and was telling me about how many words she can read and what she can write etc, and then she asked me, so what does your 4 yr old do? I said "umm...he plays..." and she launched into a lecture of how he was going to lag behind in life because he spends his days being a kid instead of a little professor ... Parents like these enable the schools.
I think this is so sad. I believe children of all ages are pushed to do too much. They never have time left over to just be kids and play. They don't get to use their imaginations because it is time for some scheduled activity. Sports, dance, clubs, scouts, playgroups and the like are nice, but whatever happened to just being home and playing? So many people seem to forget how fast childhood goes by.
And they wonder why they can't balance the budget. Maybe it's because they waste money on BS like this!
WHEW, my 4 year old has trouble rhyming as well! I tell you what, even though Bo is 4 now, we still don't do a huge structured "school day". We spend maybe 30 minutes a day with school stuff, and it's mainly a letter a day with a craft. Boom. That's it. However, we are incessantly learning by going outside and playing and finding thigs and discussing them, etc. IMHO, when kids are in school they feel confined, repressed, and bored and so when they get outside time they don't have time to discover and explore because they are too busy relishing in the freedom they have of just being able to see the sunlight and sit on the grass. (This is what my friends and I thought, so I tink it resembles the thoughts of alot of kids. Also...the High School in our town looks just like the Maximum security prison here too. lol. But really, same colors, and we have a "guard tower" at our school lol) But really, testing for preschoolers? Our kids are going to have high blood pressure and stress disorders by the time they get out of school with all this testing.
YEP!!! And I think that's probably all the "school" that is necessary for him right now. Would you believe a friend of mine didn't get her child into a Christian kindergarten because the child didn't color in the lines? Obviously, the child wasn't "ready" for Kindergarten based on that (but they would accept her in the pre-K to teach her how to color in the lines!!!)
I don't think any of my kids ever really cared about coloring in the lines and I'm just fine with that. It didn't stop them from being years ahead of their kindergarten classmates in most other ways.
and when a kid in pre-k can't color in the line like they expected, their reasons will be either parents fault or the kid needs medication. with this rate in "the system", i rather my kids learn nothing in our hs but able to preserve their soul and spirit they were born with, wouldn't you say? of course this is just my 2cents. good health and happiness.
My word! My 4 year old glues squares to construction paper My 5 year old barely rhymes. its insane what they expect kids to know. Some kids my know it and may get it but some may not. Kids learn at differnet stages. Why don't we just let our kids be kids for as long as they can. I know schooling has to be part of there life but seriously, little kids learn best naturally. Singing fun songs, playing w/ blocks and making mud pies! Let kids be kids!
